Walter M. Miller Jr. was an author who was extensively published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s. These days, he is best remembered for his award-winning novel A Canticle for Leibowitz , but his true craft lay in short stories. Between 1950 and 1957, he had over thirty-five of them published in magazines such as Amazing Stories , Other Worlds , and If .

The themes he explored were varied, but tended towards the human experience and the changes that affect society over large timescales. This collection includes stories about an early form of meme theory, the societal effect of genetically altered pets, the loss of scientific knowledge leading to potential catastrophe, and more.

The short stories in this collection are those currently known to have passed into the U.S. public domain, arranged in order of publication.